Carolyn Hax: Love is throwing life plans for a loop

Dear Carolyn: I am soon to be 30 and have a master’s degree and a blossoming career in my chosen field. I live in a busy and expensive city but I have made my own way.

I have never thought about having kids or being married until I met someone just a few weeks ago. I have found myself wanting all those things with him: house, kids, dog, wedding.

How soon is too soon for all of this? I’m kind of scared by the thought that decisions that used to be so scary to me are now something I look at fearlessly. This man is a gentleman, good person, makes me laugh and is someone I want to be better for. Oh, and I want his kids. Is this even normal??

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Sounds to me like it’s the way it’s “supposed to” work, as long as we stipulate that there is no such thing as how it’s “supposed to” work.

So, congratulations, sounds wonderful. Please just treat “I want house, kids, dog, wedding with this man” as a scientific hypothesis that you’re now going to spend the next year-plus proving in the laboratory of your daily life — a hypothesis that you don’t necessarily state out loud to anyone but your own mirror. It’s possible to be right about this after only a few weeks, but it’s not possible to know whether you’re right until you’ve spend more time together gathering evidence in support of (or against) your gut.

Re: Mistake: There’s no guarantee that you’ll know him completely in a year, but when chemicals and hormones wear off, we seem to have a better ability to see things as they are. I know, it’s not romantic. You’re in LOVE! Daisies! Kittens! But please just take a deep breath here. There’s no rush.

Anonymous

Dear Carolyn: I’ve been tasked with putting together a montage of baby pictures of my brother and sister-in-law for her baby shower, and I’ve just been informed by our parents that, because there will inevitably be photos that include me (brother and I are only a year apart), there also need to be photos that include our much younger half-sister, who was born when we were teenagers.

It’s supposed to be a video of the new parents as babies, for goodness sakes, I’m not including or excluding anyone deliberately! I’m torn between feeling like sticking in a few photos of sis would be a nice thing to do and feeling like she needs to suck it up because this is a shower and a video for my sister-in-law, not her. I’ll probably do it to keep the peace, but what are your thoughts?

Desperately Looking for Baby Pictures I’m Not In

I think the answer is to say to your parents, “Wait — what? It’s like we’re saying she can’t handle the fact that this is not about her, when it’s really not about anyone but Brother.” Say you started to gather the pix and it just struck you as forced and weird and even condescending in a way.

If they insist, then you get some pictures of your brother holding your sister as a baby and wash your hands of it.

Email Carolyn at tellme@washpost.com, follow her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/carolyn.hax or chat with her online at 10 a.m. each Friday at www.washingtonpost.com.